Football: Polish FA pull plug on goal-line officials

Poland's football federation announced on Monday that they will stop using extra officials behind each goal in the country's top-flight, ending a six-month trial.

"We're bringing an end to this experiment. It was to designed show if it was worth calling upon extra officials placed behind the goal. Today we know it's not worth the trouble," said Zbigniew Przesmycki, the head of the PZPN's refereeing school.

"The experiment has failed," Przesmycki was quoted as saying by the domestic PAP news agency.

The decision would take immediate effect, starting with the league's next set of fixtures, he added.

The extra officials had first been put in place by the PZPN last November.

There had been plenty of debate in the Polish media after a goal-line official failed to spot a ball had gone out of play, allowing leaders Legia Warsaw to score the decisive goal in their 2-1 victory at Wisla Krakow on Saturday.

Extra officials deployed behind the goals were a feature of last year's European championships held in Poland and Ukraine and are UEFA president Michel Platini's preferred option instead of goal-line technology, which world governing body FIFA is introducing.

UEFA chief refeering officer Pierluigi Collina admitted that Ukraine were wrongly disallowed a goal in a group stage match against England but said it was the only problem they had had over the course of about 1,000 matches when the system was in use.